Cooley: #1 Law Firm for IPOs in 2020

Palo Alto – February 10, 2021 – Despite market uncertainty and global challenges, Cooley’s capital markets practice continued to lead in partnering with innovative companies and their investment banks in 2020, including many at the forefront of navigating the world through the difficulties brought by the pandemic. Cooley maintained #1 rankings across several key categories and industries, advising issuers and underwriters on many of the year’s most impactful IPOs. This momentum has continued through the start of 2021.

According to Deal Point Data, Cooley ranked #1 for issuer-side IPOs by operating companies across all industries. In addition, Cooley ranked #1 overall for technology + healthcare & life sciences IPOs, including a rare #1 ranking on both the issuer-side as well as the underwriter-side. When looking at the tech and healthcare sectors separately, the Cooley team took home the top spot in all categories for the healthcare & life sciences IPOs and for issuer-side tech IPOs.

In the tech sector, Cooley’s capital markets team worked on some of the most notable IPOs of the year, including issuer-side representations on Snowflake’s $3.9 billion IPO, the largest software IPO ever; Unity Technologies’ $1.5 billion IPO; Root's $724 million IPO; and c3.ai’s $747 million IPO. They also represented the underwriters on Wish’s $1.1 billion IPO; Datto’s $594 million IPO; and BigCommerce’s $248.9 million IPO.

In the healthcare & life sciences sector, Cooley maintained its longstanding market-leading position, including issuer-side representations on Legend Biotech’s $487.3 million IPO; Kronos Bio’s $287.5 million IPO; Vaxcyte’s $287.5 million IPO; 1Life Healthcare’s $281.8 million IPO; Pulmonx's $218.5 million IPO; and Opthea’s $128.2 million IPO, the largest public debut by a development-stage Australian life sciences company. Additionally, Cooley teams represented the underwriters of AbCellera’s record-setting $555.5 million IPO; Dyne’s $267.7 million IPO; Schrodinger’s $232.3 million IPO; and 4D Molecular Therapeutics’ $222.2 million IPO.

Cooley also advised clients on a range of other types of notable capital markets transactions in 2020, including:

• Multiple SPAC transactions for targets, including those for AppHarvest, Billtrust, Canoo, Hyliion and Metromile, making Cooley the #2 most active firm for deSPAC deals last year
• Asana in its direct listing, marking the third direct listing ever
• Many of the most notable secondary offerings on the issuer-side and underwriter-side, including Zoom’s $2 billion public offering of Class A common stock; Mirati’s $1 billion public offering of common stock; Horizon Therapeutics’ $963.5 million public offering of ordinary shares; argenx’s $862.5 million public offering of ADSs; Allogene’s $632.5 million public offering of common stock; AGNC Investment’s $575 million preferred stock financing; Avalara’s $574.9 million public offering of common stock; and Shake Shack’s $140 million public offering and $74 million at-the-market equity offering of Class A common stock
• Cooley also led many of the most notable public company debt financings on the issuer-side and underwriter-side, including Uber’s $1.2 convertible billion notes offering; NVIDIA’s $5 billion notes offering; Splunk’s $1.3 billion convertible notes offering; Zoetis’ $1.3 billion notes offering; Zendesk’s $1.2 billion convertible notes offering; Guardant Health’s $1.2 billion convertible notes offering; Snap’s $1 billion convertible notes offering; Jazz Pharmaceuticals’ $1 billion exchangable notes offering; Datadog’s $747.5 million convertible notes offering; Redfin’s $661.3 million convertible notes offering; Livongo’s $550 million convertible notes offering; and The Clorox Company’s $500 million investment grade notes offering. With all of this activity, the team was among the top three firms advising issuers on convertible notes by number of transactions for 2020, according to Prospect News Convertibles Daily

Cooley has been the #1 law firm advising companies going public across all industries since 2014 and the #1 law firm for venture-backed IPOs across all industries for 15+ years, according to IPO Vital Signs and PitchBook. In 2020, the firm earned a three-time Capital Markets Practice Group of the Year distinction by Law360 and was named one of the decade's top IPO legal advisers by Bloomberg Law.

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